Holdfast: Nations At War

Fight on multiple fronts in Holdfast: Nations At War - A competitive multiplayer first and third person shooter set during the great Napoleonic Era. Charge into battle with over 150 players per server!

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops. Learn more.

Most popular community and official content for the past week.
(?)

Dev Insight. Our Plans. We're Growing The Team!

Aug 5

Now that everything is set in stone, we have a rather exciting announcement to make regarding the future of Holdfast. We’re growing the team! This will be integral towards bringing the game out of Early Access with bigger, more content-filled updates.

Having to take care of expanding the office space, recruiting new individuals and the upcoming update, has resulted in an extremely busy month for everyone at Anvil Game Studios. We’re sure that you’d love to hear more details about our plans and what we’ve been up to.

Growing The Team! Game Programmers

Starting with the most exciting recent announcement, we’d like to give you a better insight into the changes that’ll be happening to our programming department. Melee combat improvements, cavalry, player-built defences, new artillery mechanics and any other feature that you’d like to see in the game all require the expertise of a game programmer.

On the 13th of August, a Senior Game Developer (Programmer) - Dylan ‘Wrexia’ Abela will be joining the team. He’s been working in the industry developing games for over five years and we’ll be sure to put his experience to good use! He’s an awesome chap to hang out with as well.

There’s going to be yet another addition to the same department coming soon! We’re currently in the process of recruiting a Game Developer (Programmer) bringing us to a total of 3 programmers working on a full-time basis. We already have plenty of prospective individuals that we’ll be conducting interviews with this Monday.

Dylan ‘Monroy’ Vassallo has taken a step backwards from development by switching from working on a part-time basis to freelance. He’s doing this to further his studies. The team here would like to wish him the best of luck with his master’s degree! Monroy will be taking the role of mentoring new Game Developers to hasten productivity.

Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos, a Level Designer who works remotely from Germany will also be joining us for a few weeks during this month. Truly exciting times ahead of us! Here’s a look at the renovated office space to house the new folk that’ll be joining the team.

Game Updates. Our Plans

Growing the team is all well and good but some might pose the question of what our plans for the near future in terms of game updates are. We’ve been listening very closely to feedback from the community and we’re sure that what we have planned will please the good majority.

After we release the upcoming update aimed towards solving the most pressing bug fixes, game stability, 3 new maps, a minor game engine upgrade which was necessary to bring the community servers back online and other additions focused on performance optimisations, all we’ll be working on is melee combat. We’ve done our first Closed-BETA test for the upcoming update during the previous week and things have been progressing well in preparation for its release.

Right after the release of the upcoming update, we’ll place our sole focus on melee combat mechanics. The community will be deeply involved throughout this update’s development process with multiple BETAs being hosted as we push forward improvements towards this mechanic.

Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech has already taken care of a substantial amount of the work required to solve the hitbox issues that players experience whilst engaged in melee combat. Even though this is the most pressing issue, we will be doing much more in relation to this mechanic during this update as we are aware that it is at the heart of the community. To name a few others, we’ll be nerfing the melee damage dealt by flags and looking into improving feinting mechanics.

It has been a long road to come up to a point where we’re able to push more updates towards melee after we improved blocking responsiveness. We’re doing our best to finish the upcoming update as soon as possible so we can head off to the much-anticipated melee combat update.

If you have an avid interest in this mechanic and would like to give us a helping hand with feedback, please do hop in on our Discord. We’d love to hear what you think!

https://discordapp.com/invite/holdfastgame

Even though this will spoil the surprise a tad, here’s a look at the artillery class that will be introduced in an update focused on artillery mechanics after we finalise the melee combat improvements. We’ll be introducing new shot types, moveable artillery pieces, shot bounce and more.

To sum everything up, we’ll first finalise the upcoming update, then head over to melee combat and after that, we’ll start developing an update focused on artillery mechanics. We’ll also slot in performance optimisations and quality of life improvements as we go through the development phase of an update. We haven’t forgotten about team-balancing functionality as well.

There’ll be much more coming to the game besides what we’ve mentioned here before the game leaves Early Access.

Let’s get into what we’ve been working for the upcoming update. Most of the team have been busy here with recruitment and renovating the office space but we’ve got plenty of things done already.

Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer

Besides the on-going work on hitbox issues for melee combat that will be released after the upcoming update, he’s been looking into various ways to improve stability as well as solving some of the more pressing bug fixes.

First and foremost, he performed a minor game engine upgrade which was necessary to bring the community servers back online. A hotfix for this has already been released and will be present in the upcoming update. Dreas then solved an issue which caused players to start floating around and de-synch during naval combat scenarios, a graphical bug that caused the screen to flicker when a player touches the water, reduced the game’s files size, solved various issues with language localisation and spelling errors, yet another bug that stopped the map from loading forcing players to close the game, solved a variety of instances with 3D VoIP which impacted client-side performance and more.

Be sure to check out the entire list of changes in the upcoming update’s blog post.

Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist

Rycon has been polishing maps from our level designer and the community to make sure that they’re done and ready for release. He’s also been re-designing the Conquest game mode based on community feedback. You’ll now find fewer capture points present in this game mode so players are less spread out on every map.

Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer

In the upcoming update, you’ll be able to check out two new maps designed by Walki. Inspired by a historical fortification, Fort Salettes will be one of the largest siege maps to be released in the next update. The attackers will have to break through multiple layers of defences and capture them as they reach the main objective. When an objective is captured, the entire team will be able to spawn on it.

Causeways is a map designed for the Army Battlefield, Conquest and Assault game modes. The map features plenty of open places where players can fight in formation.

By The Community - Creations

This time around Pierre from the 59th Regiment of Foot decided to go for something different from the Blackforest map that was introduced along with the release of the Prussian faction. Fort Schwarz is a destructible fortification playable on the Army Siege, Conquest and Battlefield game modes. It will be available in the next update.

A line battle map designed by Starblazer from the 63e is currently undergoing its polishing phase by Rycon.

Once again, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the brilliant Holdfast community for their support. It’s been a daily pleasure of ours seeing the community grow and prosper, and we look forward to more. You can rest assured that we’ll deliver on our promise.

May good health be yours.

- Anvil Game Studios

Holdfast: Nations At War

30

163

new factions dream

would be so awesome if we could eventually have native american indians vs / americans / british

Gentleman's Guide To Holdfast™ | Introduction to Land Combat (OUTDATED)

This guide more or less focuses around basic keybinds, features, tips and tricks to help educate new players about Holdfast and its systems. Holdfast is still an early access game, however, so many of these 'tips and tricks' are prone to being outdated and...

This is the 2nd best purchase I've made on Steam - the first being the Total War Bundle. Whether you like organised line battles, or chaos in public servers or just doing your own thing, this game will give something to you. I highly recommend this game to anyone. 9/10

You spawn in. You are instantly surrounded by two officers and flag bearer. They shout "PatrioticPanda, do you want to join the 156th regiment". You tell them to ♥♥♥♥ off. You run to the main battle line. You fire 15 rounds, all of them miss. A rifleman hiding in a bush kills you from 120 meters. You respawn "Are you interested in joining the 156th?!?!". You start the 90 sec run back to the battle. A flute player jumps and zig zags past you playing Despacito. You spot a rock and run towards it. You die before you get there. You respawn. The same guy says "Join the 156th PANDA!" you cant hear it because of the player mic spaming Jake pauls "It's everyday bro". An officer is putting on a 2/10 french accent and uses the word croissant 9 times in every sentence while calling the other team pig dogs.

You make it to the rock. The enemy charges at you with 20 men. As they approach the Nazi National anthem slowly gets louder. You shoot one of the red coated men and begin your 20 second reload. You cancel as the enemy gets too close. You melee him and watch your bayonet drive through his chest. The game does not register your kill. A man instantly changes his bagpipes to a pistol and shoots you down.

You respawn. "PatrioticPanda would you like to hear about the 156th regiment". You see two men with their hands behind their head and the hips extended forward. The spin slowly as they repeat "mhhmmmmm" back and forth to one another, slowly getting louder.

You're most welcome to provide us with any feedback, suggestions or ideas - They are all highly valued. We're reading this!
Suggestions & Feedback Board
A dedicated board specifically reserved for suggestions and feedback can be found down below...

If I should stay
I would only be in your way
So I'll go but I know
I'll think of you every step of the way
And I will always love you
ooo, I will always love you
You my darling you mmm
Bitter sweet memories
That is all I'm taking with me
So goodbye but ...

Enlist at http://www.4thfoot.com
The King's Own
is a unit designed for competitive play and administrative modularity. Our goal is to create a highly skilled unit for players who want to pit their individual skills and teamwork against l...

Brace yourselves as Holdfast: Nations At War has just received one of the largest content updates to date. The much-anticipated Prussian faction is here! Muster the men and march once more for the glory of the King. Make sure to fill those ranks with new recruits as Holdfast is now 35% Off for the duration of the Steam Summer Sale.

There’s a whole lot more to look forward to besides the Prussians. A re-designed spawn menu user interface, interchangeable faction spawn positions, multiple game mode servers, interactable doors, more maps to explore and we will also be adding two new additions to the Coast Guards!

Check out the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKXQNiG-CR4It would be great if you can help us spread the word around about the sale to bring this genre of Musket Warfare games that we all love in the limelight. We want to continue strengthening the following behind the game as it grows and develops.

We’ve also finalized development on the game engine upgrade which was quite the hefty task. You’ll be seeing improvements on melee combat mechanics get into the game after this update. The community will also be heavily involved in our testing so be sure to join us on Discord if you’d like to participate.

Join The Community Discord![discordapp.com]

Prussia Released! For The King

A big cheer for the King! Head into battle with the all-new Prussian faction as they are now available to play in Holdfast: Nations At War. Cheers, shouts, insults and a plethora of German voice acted orders, brand new uniforms for each and every class and most importantly, new fife and drum tunes to make your presence well known throughout your conquest.

This faction was voted in by the community with an overwhelming majority. It has truly been a pleasure of ours designing and developing the Prussians. Here’s a look at all the uniforms.

Infantry OfficerRole: Command

Line Infantry - ColbergRole: Offense

Line Infantry - FreikorpsRole: Offense

Light InfantryRole: Offense

GuardRole: Offense

Flag BearerRole: Support

Drummer & FiferRole: Support

Marching Tunes

Althessischer Reitermarsch

Der Dessauer

Heil dir im Siegerkranz

Hohenfriedberger Marsch

Yorkscher Marsch

Pariser Einzugsmarsch

Preußischer Lockmarsch

A Drum Roll

RiflemanRole: Offense

SurgeonRole: Support

CarpenterRole: Support

Do go and check them out! The Grenadier class will be introduced at a later stage.

Faction Spawn Positions. Interchangeable

There are plenty of players who are particularly adamant about always joining one particular faction. Be it for better or worse, they only get to see one side of the map. That will all be changing in this update however.

For all those event administrators out there hosting competitive events, you should note that this functionality is supported on all existing game modes including Army Assault. We’re certain that it’ll become a very useful tool. You can find instructions on how to set your server up further down below.

British Coast Guards. New Units!

Ever wanted to defend as the British Coast Guards in the Coastal Siege game mode? Now you can! Since the initial faction spawn positions are now interchangeable we thought that it would be an opportune moment to make these units available to play in the Coastal Siege game mode.

Coast GuardRole: Offense

CustomsRole: Offense

Spawn Menu User Interface. Re-Designed

One of the first major improvements that players will immediately notice from the old user interface is that it, of course, looks significantly better! A truly marvellous job done by Cameron, our UI Designer on the design. This new spawn menu user interface will also be used to provide players with more information on the class they are playing in a future update.

We are also now displaying a randomised set of ship names with the new user interface so you can easily distinguish which ship to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates. On a side note, we haven’t forgotten about some of the issues that occur whilst playing on naval maps. They’re on our to-do list for fixes after the melee combat improvements.

2 New Maps! Linburg & Black Forest

We’ll also be introducing a couple of new maps with this update. Strive for dominance over the fortified village in Linburg with plenty of possibilities for flanking manoeuvres or take the fight on the open plains in Black Forest.

LinburgBlack ForestExpect to hear more of this from us in our blog posts as we have quite a few maps soon nearing completion! Until then, you can check the new maps out on the official servers.

Game Engine Upgrade & Melee Combat

Holdfast: Nations At War is now running on the latest version of Unity 2017! Development on the upgrade has been one of the largest undertakings that the team has embarked on to date with a code base of over 150,000 lines of code receiving iterations to make this all possible.

The engine upgrade has been our sole and primary focus during the past month. “Why spend development time on such a time-consuming undertaking?”, you may ask. We have promised our community that we will improve upon melee combat during our Early Access release and this was a necessary stepping stone towards that.

New technologies in the upgraded game engine will allow us to further refine player movement and solve the discrepancies with ‘hitboxes’ - Development on this is currently ongoing and will continue to be given the highest of priorities. As soon as development on the player movement re-design is finalized, we’ll make it available on the BETA and work with our community to polish this mechanic.

Once again, be sure to join us on our Discord if you’d like to participate.

Join The Community Discord![discordapp.com]

Army Front. Multiple Game Mode Servers

Playing the same game mode can sometimes become a bit stale and rightly so! The community suggested that we host official servers with different game modes in a server’s rotation and we’re doing just that.

Would you like to play the Army Siege, Army Conquest and Army Battlefield game modes without having to switch between servers? Join one of the Army Front official servers in both EU and NA to do so.

Interaction. Openable & Closable Doors

Albeit a relatively minor feature when compared to the rest in this update, we thought that it would be ideal to provide players with the functionality to open and close doors for fortifications, houses and other structures. The more things you can interact with on every map, the better.

Community. Crews & Regiments

Crews and regiments (clans) host weekly events where they follow the rules of engagement relevant to the Napoleonic era. It is a delight of ours seeing servers fill up to the brim with players, as regiments battle in formation.

You should definitely consider participating in one of these events. Head over to the link down below to enlist in a crew or regiment to your liking.

Enlist in a Crew or Regiment.[www.holdfastgame.com]

Here’s the entire list of additional features, bug fixes, improvements and content that you’ll find in this update.

Changelog 14 - Game Version 0.14.6746.28387

Head into battle with the all-new Prussian faction as they are now available to play in Holdfast: Nations At War.» Input the following parameter per map rotation to play as the Prussian faction: faction_attacking prussian or faction_defending prussian

Interchangeable Faction Spawn Positions! There are plenty of players who are particularly adamant about always joining one particular faction. With this addition, the initial spawn position of a faction will be different after each and every round.» This functionality is supported on all existing game modes including Army Assault and all Naval and Coastal game modes.» Input the following parameter per map rotation to define the position where a particular faction should spawn at: faction_attacking french and faction_defending british

British Coast Guards. New Units! Defend as the British Coast Guards in the Coastal Siege game mode.

The Spawn Menu User Interface has been completely re-designed. It is now much easier to locate a naval vessel to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates.

2 new maps! Linburg and Black Forest are now in the game. Both of these maps have been included in the official server map rotation.» Input the following parameters to host these maps on your community server: map_name blackforest or map_name linburg

Game Engine Upgrade! Holdfast: Nations At War is now running on the latest version of Unity 2017. Development on the upgrade has been one of the greatest undertakings that the team has embarked on to date.» All of this was done with the primary objective to improve upon melee combat. » New technologies in the upgraded game engine will allow us to further refine player movement and solve the discrepancies with ‘hitboxes’ - Work on this is currently ongoing.

Multiple Game Mode Servers! Join one of the Army Front official servers to play the Army Siege, Army Conquest and Army Battlefield game modes without having to switch between servers.

Openable and Closable Doors. More objects to interact with on the map.

Roleplay! Several chairs on various maps are now sit-able.

New end of round victory tunes for all factions are now in the game! We do hope that you take a liking to these.

Server administrators can now select Brazil as a region through the server configuration file.» Input the following parameter if you’d like to assign the Brazilian region to your server: server_region brazil

Rifleman accuracy over long distances on the Standard game type has been reduced.

Fixed a bug which caused the server to disconnect all players after 254 rounds.

Shadows have been improved.

The main menu screen has been changed to showcase the glorious Prussians.

Added an audio reverb for an echoey effect when speaking or other sounds play inside buildings.

Map loading screen images will now appear faster.

Arranged the order of a variety of spawn points on land-based and coastal maps in the spawn menu. This is so that the base spawn points where the greatest number of players can spawn will always show at the very top.

You can now find multiple spawn points on the Training Grounds map when playing on the Army Battlefield and Army Assault game modes. This will make it easier for players to travel around various locations on the map.

Adjusted the initial spawn positions for players on several maps so you don’t spawn way too much above ground. This is still a work in progress and some spawn locations have yet to be re-visited.

Training Grounds is no longer playable on the Conquest game mode.

You can now play with all the in-game classes including the Naval and Coastal ones on the Training Grounds map.

The Training Grounds map now has a unique loading screen.

Fixed an issue with an incorrect sound being played when hitting the wooden floors of the church found on the Training Grounds map with a melee weapon.

You can now find mortars at both of the base spawns on Fort Winston.

The cannons inside the siege camp on Fort Winston are now able to cover a greater area.

Included several ambient sounds on Fort Winston.

Fort Winston has received various optimisations.

Fixed an issue where players could hide inside gabions on the Desert Plains map.

Fixed an issue with objects disappearing at a close distance on the Desert Plains map.

The snow accumulation on the Grassy Plains map now looks better.

Adjusted several ladders on Sharpton so players can climb them more easily.

Fixed an issue with cannon rotations on the Sharpton siege map.

Fixed an issue where players could jump out of the window and go into the river on Sharpton.

Fixed an issue where the Officer class showed twice in the list when spawning on the Windmill spawn point on Sharpton.

Fixed an issue with the snow accumulation on the Sharpton map looking too bright.

The camp on Fort Christina has been filled with additional props.

Fixed a spelling mistake on one of the spawn points in Fort Christina.

Fixed several instances where players could get stuck between objects in Fort Christina.

You can now more easily climb the staircases near the gabions in Fort Christina.

Fixed an issue where players couldn’t spawn using the Rifleman class on the Highlands map.

Fixed an issue with recoil on one of the cannons on the Highlands map.

Players will now find additional doors when traversing inside the South Sea Castle fortification. This was done so that the fort is more easily defendable.

Fixed several spelling mistakes in the music selection panel for the British faction.

Fixed an issue with flickering textures on one of the pianos in the game.

Fixed an error that was being caused when an object was destroyed in the game.

Known Issues

Sometimes players may experience graphical issues when playing on the Naval or Coastal game modes. Disconnecting and connecting back to the server will fix the problem. We're working on a permanent fix.

Coastal Siege maps are missing a background when selecting a class in the new spawn menu user interface.

You can ‘Turn On’ a door. Yeah. Brilliant.

Army Conquest is causing issues sometimes on the server. The game mode was temporarily removed from the rotation.

Britain is spelled incorrectly on the Victory Screen emblem.

Look forward to more updates from us in the coming weeks! We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.